Screwed...

[SGOS]

I loved Montana back in the day.. I was 16 in JobCorps in Derby and one fine summer day several of us tough teenage punks decided to climb Trapper Peak. . Lesson learned. .don't try it with just a tshirt.. We tramped through the wilderness all damned day and before we even got within a mile of the tree line we thought we were gonna freeze to death. .Ya see.. Trapper Peak from the road looks like it's maybe a mile away, but it's a BIG FUCKING MOUNTAIN. . It's more like 20 miles from the road. ...We had to relearn the same lesson over and over about hiking up to Baker Lake.. On the map it looks like a ten minute walk. .the map doesn't tell stupid teenagers it's about 3 mountains away.     

]Mountain appears closer than it really is from the road. .

I know.  Big mountains tend to do that.  Coming from relatively flat land in the Midwest, the scale of those things is something us flatlanders aren't used to.  I've seen Trapper Peak from a distance, but that photo must be from an angle I've never seen it from.  People from Missoula tend to mention Trapper Peak a lot.  It's both a visible landmark and a beckoning challenge.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Yeah. .my folks were none to happy when I hitchhiked to Montana during a blizzard, but mom was relieved I didn't freeze to death along the way. . My dad actually drove from Ohio to Iowa to pick me up at the greyhound station. . I went to visit my brother stationed at Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls. I came down with ferengitis the day after I arrived and was pretty beat down from it.. My brother put me on the bus, but only had enough to get me to Iowa. . I'm kinda lucky that I lived long enough to get to Great Falls. . If it had hit me along the way I probably wouldn't be writing here today

[AtheistLemon]

I can remember my dad's exact words when I came in the door, "Kid, if you ever pull a stunt like that again,....."

That's it.  I guess I was supposed to finish the sentence myself with some kind of ominous "if......".   But my mother was so very happy that I was OK.

They didn't bother chasing after you or trying to find out where you had went to see if you were okay? That's depressing, but at the same time your story was quite inspirational.

[SGOS]

They didn't bother chasing after you or trying to find out where you had went to see if you were okay? That's depressing, but at the same time your story was quite inspirational.

I mailed them when I got there.  I didn't want them to worry.  When I wrote them I was working, they called the farmhouse, but I was out in the hay field or something.  When we got back to the house, the rancher's wife said my parents had called.  I gave her kind of a blank look, and she said they were pretty upset, but it was OK if I stayed for the summer.  I said something like, "It doesn't really make any difference what they say.  I'm not going back to Chicago."  And everyone seemed OK with that.